WELCOME TO THE OFFICIAL RICHARD E GERSTEIN JUSTICE BUILDING BLOG. THIS BLOG IS DEDICATED TO JUSTICE BUILDING RUMOR, HUMOR, AND A DISCUSSION ABOUT AND BETWEEN THE JUDGES, LAWYERS AND THE DEDICATED SUPPORT STAFF, CLERKS, COURT REPORTERS, AND CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS WHO LABOR IN THE WORLD OF MIAMI'S CRIMINAL JUSTICE. THIS BLOG HAS BEEN CALLED "THE DEFINITIVE BLOG ON MIAMI CRIMINAL LAW" BY THE NY TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, THE POPE, AND DONALD TRUMP WHO ALSO ONCE SAID IT WAS "REALLY GREAT". POST YOUR COMMENTS, OR SEND RUMPOLE A PRIVATE EMAIL AT HOWARDROARK21@GMAIL.COM

Wednesday, August 03, 2011

AWOL

EMILY UPDATE: The Colonel here- Rumpole has emailed that he will not return until the storm has passed. Emily is finally on the move. The tropical storm, which had been stalled for almost 24 hours, has started the move. The good news: Emily will NOT be a hurricane when it nears Miami.

Timing: The storm will be closest to us 8am Saturday. I have seen some models that place Emily far enough way so that we may have a beautiful day Saturday. But bet on some morning winds, rain and thunderstorms Saturday followed by a general clearing Saturday afternoon and a beautiful Sunday.

Courts: Will be open Friday.

***updated below with Judge Scola's ruling on the drugs used for the death penalty.***

Rumpole is still away so I will continue to fill in for him. This is the Colonel of County Court.

Item One: The Jury returned a verdict of second degree murder in the stabbing of the Coral Gables High school student by one of his class mates. A tragedy where everyone suffers. The Herald reports on the aftermath of the verdict here. Sentencing in October. Appeal to follow.

Item Two: David Markus and his federal blog are hopping. Yesterday afternoon the White House nominated Southern District Court Judge Adalberto Jordan to the 11th Circuit. Later in the afternoon (or was it evening?) the senate unanimously confirmed Kathy Williams as your next Federal District Court Judge. Fellow Federal Judge Zloch apparently missed the vote with an unexpected bout of acid indigestion, but everyone else celebrated. Kathy's good fortune is ours as well. This community will benefit from her on the bench. (Zloch tried to tube Williams's nomination by writing letters to the senate complaining about her. Chief Judge Fred Moreno rode to the rescue by writing his own letter and characterizing Zloch's complaint as a "non-issue". This is a win for the good guys and gals.).

Item Three: TS Emily is wobbling off the coast of Hispanola. The forecast has the storm remaining as a Tropical Storm as it approaches South Florida. The forecast also has the storm tracking through the Florida Straits between South Florida and the Bahamas and not making landfall at all. Stay tuned to minute by minute blog coverage of the storm.

In the bass-acwards and macabre world of the death penalty, here was the line-up before Judge Jacqueline Scola in the Manuel Valle case: expert witnesses for the prosecution who testified that the three drug cocktail the state wants to use to kill Mr. Valle is....as hard as this is to believe, "safe". Meanwhile, the defense experts were arguing that the drug cocktail was....dangerous (duh! If used properly it will kill you.). And as strange as it seems, Judge Scola issued a ruling in which she found that the drugs the prosecution want to use are safe enough to kill Mr. Valle.

Folks, this death penalty stuff is a bizarro world where up is down, wrong is right and safe is lethal. You figure it out.

16 comments:

I had a hearing scheduled for this coming Friday in family court. I received a call from the judge cancelling the hearing because of the storm. The JA said all hearings on Friday in family court are being cancelled.

Nothing Scola could have done would have "set a killer free." At best, this method of execution would be in question. All she had to do is decide that this method of killing was humane enough to kill a human, and not so inhumane that you wouldn't use it to put down a sick animal.

Anyway, no shock how this was decided. In fact, I heard she has a bottle of this stuff in her medicine cabinet.

Was there any doubt how Judge Scola would rule? Really, they could save a lot of money if they just reassigned all ASAs in her division to another division. The result would be the same in all cases, and the State Attorney would have three more bodies to deploy elsewhere.

The concept of "lethal injection" is inhumane in and of itself. If we are going to execute someone, then we should be honest enough to do it the old fashioned way -- firing squad maybe? -- There's nothing humane about execution. Maybe if the entire community had to take -- or see -- a more hands on approach -- they wouldn't be so quick to cheer death.

Publicly calling Shumie time is for punks. Real players do it, and don't advertise it.

Nothing smacks of desperation more than calling attention to ones self in this way. Especially when the posts are anonymous. It is like you are only pointing out to yourself how cool you are! Like looking in the mirror each day- "I'm good enough; I'm smart enough; and darn it, people like me!"

"We find that the trial court’s determination of the disputed issues in plaintiff’s favor—without first giving the defendant any opportunity to present its case — was error. Numerous cases hold that a directed verdict cannot be entered until each party has an opportunity to present relevant evidence in its case in chief. "

Yes folks, he decided the case before the defendant had a chance to present any evidence.